Alison McAlpine

Alison McAlpine is a filmmaker, writer and 2021 Guggenheim Fellow known for Cielo (2017) and Second Sight (2008). lison began her career as a published poet, inspired by family tales and the oral traditions of British Columbia where she grew up. Writer Alastair MacLeod dubbed her work as “film poetry” given its visual, dreamlike imagery. Discovering theatre in Ireland, she soon after founded a performance company and wrote and directed music-theatre works such as Chilcotin Sky and Still Moon on Fire, which toured Canada and Europe, collaborating with international theatre artists and actors who trained in clown/movement with Philippe Gaulier and Pierre Byland in France and Italy and at Canada’s Stratford Theatre.
Encouraged towards cinema by her ensemble, the success of her commission to write a TVOpera, inspired Alison to make her first film, Second Sight (2008), an award-winning mid-length film which screened at more than 35 international film festivals. BBC commissioned two versions of Second Sight. Ghostman of Skye, made for BBC Wonderland, 2009, was “Pick of the Day” or “Critics Choice” in every major UK newspaper.